Website URL

Skype

Twitter

Location

Interests

I have a plane with the following main body, from nose to aft:
Mk1 cockpit
Mk1 LF tank
Three material bays
1.25m service bay
Radially attached to this are two Mk0 tanks with an intake and a Juno each.
Rounded nosecone
The problem with this setup is that if the Mk1 fuel tank is at the rear, the CoM moves forward a lot as the fuel is used up, which makes parachute positioning tricky (aside from the fact that I never build a single plane without enough chutes to come back down safely, the plane has the starting landing gears and is already overweight as it is, so the gears explode instantly if I try to land normally). So I put the tank in the front which stabilized the CoM, but now I have a different problem: the CoM is so far ahead in the front that if I put the rear landing gear near enough to it for the plane to even take off (if so, it takes off at ~87 m/s), the plane becomes impossible to land with parachutes when the tanks are full because even though it noses down while hanging from the chutes, the moment the front wheel touches ground, the plane's rear whips down and tailstrikes hard enough to destroy the rearmost material bay.
So then. Depending on where I put the wheels, either I can't even take off or I can take off but need to fly for at least an hour before I can parachute down without breaking anything. For visual reference, this is the plane in question:
The CoM is in the Mk1 fuel tank just behind the cockpit, both when full and when empty; the rear landing gear is attached to the material bay immediately behind the fuel tank because, again, putting it any more backwards makes the plane unable to take off. Fuel transfers from the Mk0 tanks at the rear cause negligible CoM movement.

I know that landing gear have a set limit for which is the max they can hold and land. I think that it also matters if you land on the runway or out in the field somewhere.
I understand that for the basic fixed land gear the max tonnage was something like 5 tons. (At least it was a few game version ago.) Hence I never use them because all of my basic science planes are heavier.
But recently I overloaded the LY-10 gear and so now I was looking for a chart. Imagine my surprise when I see that the Kerbal Wiki says the max limit is 7 tons. I just landed my 17 ton plane just fine with them! So the question is, does anyone know what the max weight is for these gear and for a bonus the practical effect of spring and damper strength?

This seems to have been introduced in KSP 1.3.1. Some wheels bounce harder than others, but all have some bounce.
The large gear seems to have the least noticeable bounce, but it's quite noticeable at Minmus. The others are very noticeable back at KSC. The small gear seems the most stable.
To avoid scrolling down, here are current bug reports filed on this problem. Please upvote these.
https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/16159 <- Surface collisions on physics start
https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/16090 <- Related to prerelease bug #15796 Non-active vessels jumping on load still happening on 1.3.1
A workable workaround to this problem, courtesy of @whale_2

As I'm studying landing gears for AirplanePlus, I dug through piles of pieces of information in the forums and searching through KSP coding through google as well because of the lack of proper documentary for it. Here's a concise visual and textual guide to the compilation of my knowledge, hopefully made easier than longer texts and covering almost everything needed to make basic deploying landing gears
What you need:
-Have a 3D Modeling Software
-Create the model
-Make sure it has proper model hierarchy
Put it in Unity and here are the pictures:
We will use two models from my mod. It might seem cluttered but the important colors are pink and yellow.
Do not be confused by the different global orientations of the two models.
It only suggests that it will determine which is front in KSP but the wheel will have different front than the global.
---
Once exported, part configs come next:
That's basically gist of the landing gears. Here's for the mirroring of the assymetric parts:
Note that mirrored parts ALSO mirror FXModuleLookAtConstraint and lights making it impossible to have proper Drag Braces and Lights on Asymmetric Landing Gears.
And I spelled Asymmetric wrong in my mod. I can't believe this.
So what are you waiting for, download my mod now make your own landing gear now!
---
If I missed anything, or you need to know anything, don't be afraid to ask. I only included the basics, mostly.
Step by step tutorial for landing leg:

Apologies if in the wrong area for this.
i was wondering two things. Why don't the landing legs have deploy limit options?
Additionally, I attempted to add a line into the landing gear cfg, but it appears it made no difference. So where would I add this it if possible at all? Also would it be possible to add in a min as well as a max deployment.

The goal of this is just to make parts that I have wanted that just may be useful to someone else.
Parts:
4 Variants of a 50 caliber long recoil machine gun. Why:
I like how long recoil guns look when they fire with the very visible mechanisms moving
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
The four variants are wing mounted, wing mounted with a magazine, surface mounted (shrouded) with and without a magazine. This is not based on any real machine gun but the barrel and mechanisms are, I think, within reason as I tried to follow typical specs/barrel sizing while modeling. The magazines also hold what I measured to be a to scale amount of ammunition. For sound these use the base BDArmory sounds. This needs BDArmory to work
2 Variants of aesthetically different gun pods. Why:
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
These may eventually become turrets
These very roughly follow realistic sizes (The barrels at least). They come with ammunition. (If you can guess, I made these before the previous ones.). This needs BDArmory to work
3 Variants of BDArmory Combination Command Boxes. Why:
To combine 3/4 frequently needed parts into one
To have to closest thing to a laser I can make
These have AI flight modules, Weapon Management modules, Flight Command modules, Solar panels, Batteries Lights (lasers?!), Very Small Reaction Wheels Radios and Small RTGs. Its recommended to use 360 degrees of view for now. This needs BDArmory to work
1 Small Single Shaft 1 mode thrust direction changing turbojet fin (Based loosely on the TJ100(Tweakscalable)) Why:
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
Ive wanted a small drone sized jet engine that does not need anything but itself to produce thrust/steering. (Intake, directional thrust, fin, small fuel tank, engine included).
These are pretty small, so theyre great fun early stages, but youll want tweakscale to play around.
1 Electric Ducted fan ((Tweakscalable)). Why:
I like electric ducted fans, and wanted one I could tweak to feel more realistic and like the look of.
Both this and the mono prop engine use KAX sound assets.
1 Atmosphere breathing mono propellant powered 0.625/half size piston engine (Tweakscalable). Why:
For low flying flying rovers on planets with atmospheres but no oxygen like eve based on concept from nasa in the 70s
Single Piece Landing gear. (scalable) Why:
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
Thanks to Shadowmage for answering probably too many questions about this.
It uses KSPWheel as well as Kerbal Foundry sound assets.
One Part y axis balanced dual wheel landing gear. Why:
To have a small steerable landing gear piece that has functional wheel colliders for each wheel, meaning a vehicle can be balanced on just 2 of them.
Outside of BDArmory parts, parts are on the techtree.
I decided to post this here, in addon releases, as Il probably never really "finish" it as basically Il just keep adding parts I want and I think ive basically hit all the major points I wanted to hit when starting. I think Il just let the other thread die, or post more in depth info there.
Blog like "development" update thread with issues, planned changes and smaller updates I dont think warrant a number change. (Quotations because its such a small mod relatively in the sea of kerbin).
Link to SpaceDock Download
Dependencies, recommended and included mods:
Included
Included
Not Included. Latest Downloads available from the official Github Releases page.
Recommended
License:
Feedback is appreciated. Ive never done this before and am clueless. If anything is off, and you know how to make it better, Im open to advice.
Also thanks to Shadowmage and Spannermonkey for their assistance with KSPwheel and BDArmory Continued respectively. They've both been extremely helpful with questions, examples and advice. Also thanks to all others who have been helpful here and there.

The goal of this is just to make parts that I have wanted that just may be useful to someone else.
Currently:
4 Variants of a 50 caliber long recoil machine gun. Why:
I like how long recoil guns look when they fire with the very visible mechanisms moving
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
The four variants are wing mounted, wing mounted with a magazine, surface mounted (shrouded) with and without a magazine. This is not based on any real machine gun but the barrel and mechanisms are, I think, within reason as I tried to follow typical specs/barrel sizing while modeling. The magazines also hold what I measured to be a to scale amount of ammunition. For sound these use the base BDArmory sounds. This needs BDArmory to work
2 Variants of aesthetically different gun pods. Why:
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
These may eventually become turrets
These very roughly follow realistic sizes. They come with ammunition. (If you can guess, I made these before the previous ones.). This needs BDArmory to work
3 Variants of BDArmory Combination Command Boxes. Why:
To combine 3/4 frequently needed parts into one
To have to closest thing to a laser I can make
These have AI flight modules, Weapon Management modules, Flight Command modules, Solar panels, Batteries Lights (lasers?!), Very Small Reaction Wheels Radios and Small RTGs. Still trying to figure out how to orient the bdarmory modules correctly in relationship to the command module. This needs BDArmory to work
Edit: 0.01 Update: Added slimmer AI Command box that looks far more stealthy/sleek.
1 Small Single Shaft 1 mode thrust direction changing turbojet fin (Based loosely on the TJ100(Tweakscalable)) Why:
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
Ive wanted a small drone sized jet engine that does not need anything but itself to produce thrust/steering. (Intake, directional thrust, fin, small fuel tank, engine included).
This has about 5 minutes of fuel at sea level, 15 degrees of articulation and has no thrust vectoring but instead acts as a fin. the engine itself occupies a 27cm by 27cm by 64 cm box (like the real life PBSTJ100) (very slightly off angle at the moment, to be fixed ). This needs no other mods to work. Has turbine rotation animation, along with heat animation. Placed in career mode to the same place as the smallest available jet.
Edit: 0.00201 Update to the UR100c TurboJet fin. It will function more like a typical fin, and have a far more reasonable aerodynamic effect for its size. The animations were also updated with more orangey red lighting from the engine heating up, and an animation that visibly goes the correct way. Turns out it was never off angle and stock fins also have a similar effect. Nevertheless its improved. It has also been edited to work with Tweakscale (Recommended as outside of the early stages of career mode, these engines are quite weak without scaling (given the real life analogs are made with small planes or rc planes in mind)).
Edit: 0.01 Update to UR100c TurboJet fin. It now has a drage cube that better reflects its shape. Ive noticed its more powerful than the real life engine as in ksp itd be pretty near to useless if my calculations are right. Its not too far off though, so tweakscale is still something you'll want to use with this most likely. Im considering making a bigger one.
1 Electric Ducted fan ((Tweakscalable)). Why:
I like electric ducted fans, and wanted one I could tweak to feel more realistic and like the look of.
This is not based on any particular real world fan and does not have any special tweaks to work in ksp. Its finished mostly. I just need to add sound.
Edit: 0.01 Update: This has been added. It relies on community resource pack with intakeatm to work. Balance could use work. Both this and the mono prop engine use KAX sound assets.
1 Atmosphere breathing mono propellant powered 0.625/half size piston engine (Tweakscalable). Why:
For low flying flying rovers on planets with atmospheres but no oxygen like eve based on concept from nasa in the 70s
This is pretty much done. Modelling is complete, variable pitch propellers work along with reversing thrust. All I need to do like the electric engine is finish sound.
Edit: 0.01 Update: This has been added. It works without intake atm for the time being. It still provides no thrust without atmosphere however so that is good. Im considering using firespitter for both this and the ducted fan.
Single Piece Landing gear. (scalable) Why:
I like low part count parts that combine multiple things together for quick assembly.
This is really nowhere close to being made. It will be using KSP wheel (so that it can support having more than 1 wheel collider) and while the model is done, setup will probably take a while even with a helpful example from the maker of kspwheel (Shadowmage) .
Edit: 0.01 Update: Its been made! Its designed differently than the first design, but it works completely. Im actually pretty happy with how its turned out. It uses tank steering and looks a whole lot more rugged than the first iteration. I plan to make another one with a more typical arrangement as well. Thanks to Shadowmage for answering probably too many questions about this.
It uses KSPWheel as well as Kerbal Foundry sound assets.
One Part y axis balanced dual wheel landing gear. Why:
To have a small steerable landing gear piece that has functional wheel colliders for each wheel, meaning a vehicle can be balanced on just 2 of them.
Planned:
Single Piece Landing gear (No tank steer). Why:
To match a more typical landing gear look.
Variety
Turbo fan jet engines (With animations than go to 90 degrees for vertical takeoffs). Why:
Making vertical takeoffs easier
Electric lift fan (With animations than go to 90 degrees for vertical takeoffs). Why:
Making vertical takeoffs easier
Add Fire Spitter to props/fans. Why:
Better matching rotations
Making the variable pitch propellers on the monoprop piston engine function better.
Rotation affected by air speed
Landing gear enhancements (Making the small single axle menu have full customizability (difficult now due to having 3 real wheel colliders)). Why:
Allowing the same customizability as would be on normal ksp wheels with a single part that balances on 2 wheel collider
Add to CKAN
Fix shading on parts of the 50 cal machine guns, particularly the outer housing. 0.011 Its fixed. Not perfectly, as I think that would require changing the model, and that would require re doing a whole lot of the setup in unity after fixing it in blender. Ive just made things generally less shiny/rough.
Put this on the actual addon release page since thats basically what this is really. I have posted this there now. I'l probably just keep updating this main post and linking to it from that one with small updates, issues etc. Just stuff that I think would clutter up the release page.
Link to SpaceDock Download
Dependencies, recommended and included mods:
Included
Included
Not Included. Latest Downloads available from the official Github Releases page.
Recommended
License:
Feedback is appreciated. Ive never done this before and am clueless. If anything is off, and you know how to make it better, Im open to advice.
Also thanks to Shadowmage and Spannermonkey for their assistance with KSPwheel and BDArmory Continued respectively. They've both been extremely helpful with questions, examples and advice. Also thanks to all others who have been helpful here and there.

HEY! I was landing with my lander to the moon, but when i lowered My LT-2 Struts they were bend on part that lands. I dont know what this is could somebady tell me. I dont know how to get them properly?

I apologize ahead of time if this is the wrong forum section, however I see nothing that would fit this better.
Im trying to get into modding so through very loosely following the wikipedia guide to parts and a few other video tutorials ive reached the point where I have a textured model made in blender (Its a single part count landing gear unit because its something ive always wanted and the only one ive seen was a helicopter skid), but now Im unsure of the steps between here and the game.
Small note: There are 3 simpler models over the main 3 wheels and body for collision models, which arent visible in the video. The scale is also reasonably sized for 1.25 parts though hopefully I can make this tweakscale compatible as well.
Following this guide I know how to export it into a fashion where it can be seen in game, but Im a bit lost past that with regards to getting the animations to work in game/setting up the configuration file to activate them, setting node locations and there really arent any start to finish guides that explain this that ive found.
Any help would be appreciated, particularly if there is a video explaining this, or perhaps just an explanation of modules and their interactions with animations along with what modules do perhaps.

Obviously my own "stupidity" rating is on the high side... I've been trying (and failing) to piece together something understandable from all the discussion of landing gear/wheel problems in 1.1.2. Would some kind Kerbingineer please summarize it at a relatively simple (i.e., non-programmer) level? I have searched through a lot of the discussions on the forum, but I haven't found a post that explains it all satisfactorily.
Specifically, I hope to find straightforward answers to these sub-questions:
1. I have heard that landing gear/wheel behavior has changed, apparently not for the better, in 1.1.2. Is this a bug, an intended modification of the game physics, or perhaps a combination (i.e., buggy modification of physics)?
2. Are all landing-gear type items affected? For instance, landing legs, aircraft landing gear, and rover wheels? Anything else that contacts the ground?
3. Is there a known workaround(s), patch, or recommended best practices to minimize/avoid the problems?

So... I'm seeing this kind of landing gear...
And I'm confused about precisely what's the advantage of using caterpillar track as landing gear since usually that thing is associated and seen on tanks, tractors and bulldozers, and those usually moves slowly (most of the time), and aircraft landing and takeoff is usually performed in high speed
So can anyone explain to me what's the advantage and disadvantage of this kind of landing gear? What's the practical reason of using it?

The mod is completely non-functional due to KSP updates, and, dare I say, it's near-essential for an enjoyable aircraft-building experience because of how awkward the stock gear are:
Any idea how to substitute it?

At the moment we only have Kneeling Gear with Wheels, my suggestion seems like one that may have been requested many times but after a few searches I haven't found the topic. Does anyone know if there any future plans to add Folding Gear for Aircraft? (Wheels folding from the wings towards the fuselage).

Hey guys,
anyone who can fix the adjustable landing gear mod from BahamutoD for ksp 1.1.3
I understand he has no time for it and waits for a good wheel mechanics fix.
Dont know if there are any experienced modder out here who wants to give his time for this mod.
The main problem is that if it touches the ground it clips or bounches the like he is seeing the kraken himself.
In my opinion the stock landing gear is still a bit a pain in the ass...
edit:
What a moderator said:
'The author has indicated that the mod wouldn't be updated until Squad is finished with wheel fixes, I think the idea is to avoid having to update them for the currrent version and then having to update them again after fixes are applied.
These parts are a bit more complex than the typical wheel parts, given their procedural nature. I think it's understandable that they require a bit more work than most wheel parts.'
and this is what another forummember said:
guys! i got a build for 1.1.2 for all of you guys.
Main Download : link (not working as intended) fixing it...
Sourcery : link
Enjoy! if you want me to take it down. just tell me.
EDIT: after a look around.. i cannot find a solution to the wheels sinking into the ground. baha could use this as a base though.
EDIT 2 : after some after thought.. someone will need to use unity to update the wheel colliders.

Friends,
Been a long time since I've been on the KSP Forums - in fact the last time was before the great forum wipe of a few years ago. I come to you today with a question:
If you look at the screenshots linked below (not sure why I can't insert them directly into the post) of an aircraft I made, you can see these odd grey crosses coming from the light sources for the landing gear, as well as a grey rectangular shape coming out from near the cockpit. What are these, and more importantly how do I get rid of them?
http://imgur.com/aQNPsct
http://imgur.com/whnrm2P
Mods include a lot of airplane parts expansions, SVE, Scatterer, planetshine, trajectories.
Any help you could give would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Hello, as the title says, im curious if someone could update this mod?
I cant find any similar mod out there and the original landing gear cant handle alot of weight before they break and only the medium size wheel have steering.
Link to Mod
Not sure if its legal for ppl to update other ppls mod but as i could read in one of his forum posts he cant update his mods anymore since he got school, etc etc

Hi all,
Got a problem. I have a simple plane/shuttle I use in early career for fulfilling basic tourist contracts. It works fine, but when I land it, I hit the brakes and it starts to slow down just fine, then suddenly will veer one way or the other and do a "power slide" turning a full 360 sometimes before stopping - like something straight out of an action movie. Of course sometimes this also involves wings or engines slamming into the ground, but Jeb don't care, he likes style points apparently.
I added a couple of drogue chutes to the back of the plane to stop this from happening, but as this is a tier 1 plane/SPH, every part counts, and I'd rather have a couple of solar panels instead. I've tried altering my gear placement, setting the rear gear to 200 drag and the front to 50, disabling steering on the rear or both gears, nothing seems to help. Anybody else have this issue and found a way to fix it?
Here's a link to a few pictures, any help would be appreciated.
http://imgur.com/a/4Y55u

I was just thinking the other day when I was taxiing my passenger plane to the runway. I was thinking, it would be really useful if the landing gears had motors in them so we don't have to use our engines (and therefore expend fuel) to taxi to a specific location.
Let's say you sent a resupply SSTO to Duna, but you overshot the base. It would be much better to use in-built motors to taxi to the base, instead of expending valuable LFO just to travel a kilometer or so.
Of course, the motors would use electric charge and have maximum loads, much like actual rover wheels in KSP.
So what do you think?

I started a fresh career in 1.1 and am in the very beginnings of the tech tree. I have a 12 part airplane, mk1 tank, 2 mk 2 tanks with two weaslys mounted to the ends of them, mk1 crew pod, two wings, tail section, tail fin, 4 elevons, single steerable gear up front and two fixed in the rear. Super simple craft, but the only way I can land it is in the water. I tried 15 or so times to land it on the runway and as soon as the gear touch the runway, boom! I had airspeed down to 57 m/s with vert less than 5 m/s, no way it should be blowing up. I am noticing that on take off the landing gear is clipping into the ground also. I have screenshots, the page says I'm not cool enough yet to add media to my posts.

Is there any resources on creating landing gear with the new system? Do I have to install anything new? I'm guesing I have to use unity 5 with part tools 1.1 or 1.2 should they ever be released.
I have an amazing idea on how to make a foux hovercraft using invisable landing gear with 0 traction. I'm making an LCAC for my CVX mod to go with the LHD Carrier.
Edit: Also I'd like to make some landing gear.

As the landing legs are currently experiencing some issues (lack of friction and the ability to accelerate Kerbals to a fatal velocity) I'm looking for alternatives. What do you use? I'm not keen on simply landing on the engine bells as it just doesn't feel "right". (eg on the Apollo 15 mission the LM suffered quite a dent in the bell of the descent engine after touching down a little on the hard side)
I play the stock version of KSP.
Suggestions gratefully received
Clipper.

Just finished a flight test on some tweaks I've been doing for my own game.
I'm willing to bet many of you playing with aircraft have problems with skidding and spinouts from even the slightest yaw input while on a takeoff roll or landing. Most people don't make sense of the new tweakables, and settings, and I've noticed that some critical settings are counter-intuitive. I have some workaround fixes that may improve ground roll performance.
I'll start by advising you, part of this light fix will be modification to Squad parts files. Back them up.
And here's the fix list.
1: Input Sensitivity value is inverted. Set HIGH, not LOW.
In your game settings, under input for vehicles, you'll have a sensitivity slider that ranges from 0 to 100. For some reason, the value mode is inverted. 0 is HYPER sensitive (The slightest tap takes the control range to max). Set your sliders to 100 to minimize sensitivity. This is likely a bug, so be prepared to verify this on any given update of KSP.
2: Use increased, but not identical friction on gear.
When setting up landing gear in tricycle arrangement, set the friction value of the aft gear to 2, and the friction of the steering (forward) gear to 1.5. In this manner, your forward gear will slip while your aft gear are still gripping. So just like tires on cars: Newest tires with the best grip go on the back to prevent the aft end coming free. The increased slippage on the front gear also prevents an aggressive turn command on the steering from grabbing too suddenly.
3: Modify the Steering Curve.
While fixes one and two make craft somewhat controllable, they still get extremely squirrely if given the slightest direct yaw steering input. The result is a bunch of sensitive overcorrection taps that make things ugly VERY fast. I did some digging, and brought up the module that defines steering behavior.
MODULE
{
name = ModuleWheelSteering
baseModuleIndex = 0
caliperTransformName = SteeringPivot
steeringResponse = 2
steeringCurve
{
key = 0 30
key = 10 9
key = 30 2
}
}
This is code for the small retractable landing gear (Single wheel). Immediately, I noted 'steeringResponse = 2' and 'steeringCurve'. I was unable to find anything on steeringResponse, but I found some discussion around the forums talking about the values under Steering Curve. Without any final say, the conjecture is that the first value is velocity, the second is turning angle, I'm assuming in degrees per second. Which is saying in the code above that that the rate the wheel can turn is 30 degrees per second at 0 m/s up to the maximum pivot value.
It is ALSO possible that that is the maximum pivot value for the wheel at said speeds.
Either way, I halved the first number and left the second alone. If it's a rate curve, then the rate of wheel pivot decreases with speed, making it react slower as you gain speed down the runway, decreasing the overcorrection tendencies. If it's a maximum angle, then you STILL benefit by the reduced velocity value as the maximum turn angle is cut down much sooner.
So, long and short, go down the keys and half the value of the first number in each key. This should improve turning control of aircraft on flight rolls. I noticed an immediate improvement when I did so.
As a note for anyone who wants to play with modifying these values:
10 meters a second velocity is 19.4 knots, which is 22 MPH, which is 35 km/h. Keep those speeds and values in consideration when deciding how much turn you want wheels to give you. Anyone who learns more, feel free to add to the topic.

When selecting (non-wheeled) landing gear, how are you solving this problem:
Given a landing mass, gravity, and anticipated impact speed:
What is the correct gear count, type, spring strength, and dampening strength?
I am using experience/guesswork to make my choices now, so answers in that ballpark won't help much. Looking for the mathematics behind the parts, or experimental results someone has collected.

I am also having issues with craft wheels clipping through the runway, then it will bounce around until something explodes (usually a wheel or 2 but i have had 1 craft go super bounce and explode, though a revert flight showed it to just lose a wheel...random). when i used the large firespitter wheels they still clipped runway but did not bounce around and when I start the engine and raise power it pushed the vehicle but the wheels looked to be being dragged as if stuck but i would edge forward until the speed would get to about 20 m/s and then booom. it looks to me like an extra image is on top of the original runway but the collision detection seems stuck in the middle of where the runway looks like it is and the actual ground its trying to stand on.